


Unfrozen

by ledez_dreams



Series: Slowly Towards [3]
Category: Firefly
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-09 07:39:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16445606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledez_dreams/pseuds/ledez_dreams
Summary: Simon needs supplies





	Unfrozen

"Planetside in fifteen, Doc."

Barely an acknowledgement from Simon.

It never failed to irk Mal, being ignored in his own ship. Moving from the infirmary door, Mal walked in and went to Simon's side. "What you doin' in here anyway?"

"Hmmm? I'm making a list of supplies I'm going to pick up on Persephone." He answered distractedly, adding another line to what looked to Mal like a very long list. Mal reached over and snatched the paper out from under Simon's fingers to read what was on it. Simon didn't react outwardly, but Mal could feel the surge of irritation radiating off the doctor. Ignoring this, he skimmed over the contents of the doctor's list. Mal whistled.

"Doc I hope you realize this list you've conjured up ain't more than a fantasy, we don't have enough to spare for half this gorram stuff. We're here to get a job, not go on a shopping spree. I'm sorry to say, but you'll have to make do with what's in stock."

"Right now we don't have any stock to speak of. We haven't for a couple of months now, not after Miranda," Simon replied stiffly, then arched his dark eyebrows in that haughty way that he had before adding, "Besides Captain, I don't seem to recall asking for money."

"Well that may be, but I know you ain't got that kind of coin." Mal shot back. Simon was silent and after a moment, he nodded evenly. But it wasn't in an agreeing sort of way, it was in a placating way. Suggesting to Mal that perhaps Simon did have the coin. But that wasn't possible. Mal narrowed his eyes.

"You gonna explain yourself, Doc?"

Simon shut his eyes for a moment. His lips pursed as he let out his breath in a long sigh.

"Some of my accounts have been unfrozen." He breathed out in one long word.

Of all the things Mal could have envisioned Simon saying, that was not one of them.

" _Wo de ma,_ you're _what_ has been _what?_ "

Simon sighed again. "During the last week we were doing repairs, River looked into my Osiris accounts without my knowledge. She showed me afterwards. She said the Operative had done it. When we looked together, it was exactly as she'd said, they were unfrozen."

Mal shut his eyes. There were minutes from landing on Persephone which was always crowded with Feds. He was not hearing this right now.

"And you didn't think that that was information you and your sister had best be sharing with me?"

Simon's answer was cut off by the sound of the sister in question.

"Coming into orbit around Persephone, Captain, landing soon." River's voice floated out of the comm next to the infirmary door.

 _"Tamade_ ," Mal swore and turned to the door. He turned back and eyed Simon who's head was again bent over his list, his dark hair falling around his eyes. "You and me'll be discussin' this again, Doc."

"That's fine by me, but I'm still getting those supplies today." Simon said firmly and barely flinched at the glare returned his way.

Mal clenched his hands, wanting very much to argue the point, but they didn't have time.

"You go by yourself and come back yourself. You don't take my mechanic with you. If you run into trouble, that's your problem. Don't expect a rescue team, _dong ma?"_

Simon smiled."Yes, Captain."

Mal fumed all the way up to the bridge and sat down hard into the empty seat next to his pilot.

"He's using it for us, wants to help." River said lightly, not looking at him as she watched the planet get larger on the screen.

"Don't start with me," Mal snapped. River was just as culpable in this as Simon the way he saw it. "And in case you were wonderin', you're comin' with me, Zoe and Jayne to see Badger. That brother of yours is on his own, _dong ma_?"

"No trouble for Simon, it'll be smooth." River replied immediately, and if she was fazed by his ire, she didn't show it.

"Well you'd best pray that's true, because we are not mounting rescue mission if it ain't smooth." Mal answered. "We _ain't_." He exclaimed at the skeptical look on River's face.

"Can't help but rescue a heart, even when it's blind." She answered cryptically. Mal rolled his eyes and made the easy decision to ignore _that_ bit of nonsensical advice.

"Let's just land and see about the rest of us earnin' our coin rather than havin' it handed to us out of some bank account."

"Simon earned his money." River protested in defence of her brother. "Legally."

"Well even still," Mal sputtered, not able to think of a quick retort to that one. Hard to argue with the truth. "This better be a good gorram job." He muttered.

"Badger job," River moved her hands over the controls as she began to initiate the landing sequence. She turned to Mal and grinned. "Could be better, could be worse."

He supposed he could live with that.

___

Mal had heard some from Zoe and Wash about the night River and Badger met. It was during the night when he'd been busy tryin' his hand at death by sword so he hadn't witnessed it first hand. Mal didn't know exactly what had happened between the two of them but every time they came to Persephone to meet the man, he constantly found himself surprised by their exchanges with one another.

What was more surprising though was how much Badger seemed to like River. Because she was consistently awful to him.

She would always imitate his accent. Mal initially thought it was a form of disguise, but that didn't quite add up. Badger was constantly asking her River about people from "home" or the "old country." Did River know this person, that person, he would incessantly ask. When was she home last? What did she miss? Did she remember that restaurant, that amazing little street vendor on Sheng street? Surely after enough questions that went unanswered, Badger would eventually realize she wasn't actually from there.

"I'm quite sure I don't know anyone remotely related to the likes of you." She said disdainfully this time around, part of their same old dance. The snobbery was so extreme, even her brother hadn't lived up to that at his worst. The type of condescension Mal didn't take well, and knew that Badger didn't either.

"Ah, you'd be surprised, love, you'd be surprised." Badger replied with an easy grin, barely fazed.

"Oh I highly doubt that." She sniffed, turning to Mal. "Let's see how many times he lies about this particular job before we get on with it."

It was unbelievable. Mal had spent the entirety of his dealings making his low opinion of Badger abundantly clear and it had gotten his crew nothing but trouble. Yet River did her worst. She'd berate him, insult him and unfailingly call him on a lie the moment she sniffed it out. Badger simply lapped it up. And treated Mal and the crew far far better as a result. In fact he was becoming one of their more reliable contacts, and reliable contacts was something they badly needed after Miranda.

Some things just weren't meant to be questioned.

The job was better than he could have ever hoped for. The border planets were trying to rebuild after the Reaver attacks. Usually they'd left places attacked by Reavers alone, possibly due to superstition, possibly due to the enormity of the task. After Miranda however, the Reaver numbers were decimated and word had gotten out. In an effort for damage control, the Alliance had even sent out military to patrol the rim. People could think about rebuilding without fear of being destroyed again.

Badger had found work in supplying the border planets with plants of all things. Starter crops, veggies, fruit trees and even some flowers to restore some of the terraformed planets foliage. Seedlings well tended in Persephone greenhouses and looking for new homes. Badger brokered the deal and contracted Serenity to deliver them. It felt good. It seemed like a cargo of hope for the future.

"It's good work, Sir." Zoe commented with a small smile when they finished stacking the cargo later that day. Kaylee was getting the sun lamps set up that they needed to ensure the seedlings would make it on their journey. They also stacked up a large amount of compost that would be sold along with the plants.

"Yes it is." He lowered his voice and chose his words carefully. "They're rebuilding because of what we did. That's something, aint' it?"

"Yes, Sir." She agreed quietly. "Not enough yet, but not nothin' neither."

"And we get paid." Jayne added in matter of factly as he walked by the two of them. "Don't be forgettin' the important part."

For once, the pay wasn't the important part though, and Mal thought even Jayne knew that. But it was such a typical Jayne comment, one they hadn't heard out of him in a while, it lifted Mal's spirits rather than irritate him. Maybe there was hope for all of them after all to come out on the other side.

He was in a calmer, more foriving mood therefore as he strode into the infirmary a few hours after they'd hit atmo.

"You get all your supplies, doctor?"

"I did," Simon replied with a genuine smile in return. He stood up from the cupboard he'd been leaning into, clearly putting away his own cargo haul, which looked extensive. Brushing his hands to rid them of non-existent dust, he leaned casually against the counter. "So I suppose that means we'll be having our chat now?"

"Seems so." Mal replied briskly. He moved to the counter opposite the doctor and crossed his arms in front of him. They faced each other from opposite sides of the room. "First of all, I was under the impression you'd spent everything to get River out of the Alliance facility."

"Well I liquidated everything that I could at that time," Simon nodded. "I had a few hundred thousand credit tied up in investments that were locked in and inaccessible at the time. I tried everything I could to discreetly remove it, but the Alliance is pretty clear on the laws and I couldn't touch it before maturity. It came due a little less than a year ago and was just sitting and frozen. Truth be told, I'd quite forgotten I even had it."

How did someone forget they had a few hundred thousand credit in the bank?

"Most of that money is still frozen, Captain." Simon said quickly, Mal's thoughts must have showed on his face. "It's well under half that we could access. River said the Operative did what he could as a kind of apology."

"Might it have occurred to your top three percent brain that they were baiting you with that unfrozen account, son?" Mal interjected. "It's very possible they used this as a carrot in order to track you." Which means you put us all at risk being tracked.

Simon rolled his eyes. "It's not as though we walked through the front door of Osiris Platinum Bank Captain. River hacked into the Cortex. We pulled it out while we were still doing repairs and it's out of the system now. We converted it to untraceable Cortex currency. Even if they had tracked us accessing an unfrozen account, the operative had been there on the moon with us only days before, they already knew where we all were. River made sure they couldn't track us beyond there."

"And you trust River to have done it right I take it." Mal retorted, then relented at Simon's sharp look, even he knew how silly that sounded. "Ya okay, she did it right." He himself had trusted River to help them rob a bank not long ago after all due to her very specific gifts. It made sense, but Mal still didn't like it.

"I pulled it out of a random currency point this afternoon. Paid cash for the supplies."

"Does Kaylee know about this?"

"Some of it," Simon bit his lip. "I didn't want it to stress her out. Mostly though, it felt like something River and I were doing together, just us as equals. It felt... sort of like old times. The two of us having our own little adventure. It felt normal. Do you know what I mean?"

Mal did know. And could understand, River had changed some since Miranda, for the better. When Simon wasn't glowing over Kaylee and their new relationship, he was mooning over his sister and her newfound grasp on sanity. But he wasn't about to let that empathy in the way of being the Captain. "You should have told me."

"I..." Simon bit his lip, clearly mulling it over. He sighed. "You may remember it was a trying time. It hadn't been all that long after River and I had tried to leave the ship for good. I didn't really know where I stood with you. I didn't know if we were even going to be staying for the long term."

"I might have thought everything we all went through shortly after on account o' you and your sister may have convinced you otherwise?" Mal replied dryly.

"Yes well," Simon snorted a bit, but after a moment looked away uncertainly. "I think some of that had more to do with strictly River than me. I sometimes still wonder where it is I stand in all this."

"You're the doctor." Mal replied automatically, puzzled.

"I am." Simon agreed softly, musing over something. After a moment he looked up with a brief nod. "I concede. I should have told you."

Mal sighed. That should have been it, but Simon's agreement with Mal's way of thinking didn't put the matter entirely to rest. He supposed this had to be addressed sometime or later. He uncrossed his arms and stepped closer to the doctor.

"Look, Doc, what I said before... after that bank job, when I shot my mouth off about you not being crew. Well I was more than a bit ornery after that job, with the Reavers hitting that town. I may not have been at my best."

"And you did get punched in the face as I recall." Simon added in, a slight smirk playing on his face.

"I did." Mal lips twitched, a bit relieved that Simon willingly diffused the situation some. "And I can understand you're still learnin' the ways of out here in the black, but punchin' a man ain't exactly the way to put him in a charitable sort of mood."

"Yes it does have a way of upsetting a person." Simon replied, a little mirth tinging his voice.

"You do have a point though. I may have said some things about you and your intentions with us that weren't entirely fair." Mal finished. Simon nodded thoughtfully at Mal's words. Which was good thing as it was as close to an apology as he was like to get.

Mal put his hand on Simon's shoulder. It was solid, strong under his fingers. A bit surprising given that Simon always seemed so soft out here.

"Thank you, Captain."

"Now what also means is as crew, you are accountable to me. I need to know about things like this. Your coin is your own Doctor, and I have no notion of taking any of it away from you. But when it has the potential to affect us all, I don't care if it's private or not, it does become my business. If you plan on extravagant spending that attracts attention to all of us, I need to have the okay on that."

Simon raised his eyebrows. "Captain, if I'd had concerns for our safety or if we were being tracked, I would have come to you. And today, I wanted to buy medical supplies. I think that's reasonable. It's for the good of all of us. Nor do I have grand plans to whisk River and Kaylee away in one fell swoop."

That touched a nerve a bit, the fears Mal had been having lately. Showed a depth of perception on Simon's part that made him uncomfortable. And it in no way addressed what Mal had just finished telling him. Mal brushed his insecurities aside.

"Well that's mighty good to hear, Doctor. But I think I'd still like a bit of commitment for better communication on your part in the future."

Simon nodded slowly. "I think I can live with that." The sentence ended there, but there was an unspoken word hanging in the subtext.

Mostly.

"Best that you do live with that while you're on this boat." Mal said firmly. Then, because he didn't want to escalate this discussion any further, he added, "Chow's in 30 and it's Inara cooking, so best be on time if you want a decent portion." With Book gone, Inara was easily the best cook on the ship, and she'd been volunteering for more shifts lately to everyone's delight.

Simon nodded with a smile, his dark hair spilling over his left eye. "Wouldn't miss it."


End file.
